ASU Retirees Association (ASURA) Video History Project Interviews

Panel Discussion by J. Russell Nelson, Frank Sackton and Brent Brown on the history of ASU during the presidency of Russell Nelson, 1981 -- 1989. Recorded in February 2006. It was a wide ranging discussion including the birth of West Campus, the coming of the Cardinal football team, handling NCAA violations including protecting Jim Brock, moving the research agenda forward toward a Research 1 University.

Born in Arizona, the son of educators, Lattie F. Coor was the 15th President of ASU. He attended NAU for his undergraduate degree and went on to receive his masters and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He remained at Washington University as a faculty member, eventually becoming its Vice Chancellor. In 1976, Lattie left to become the 21st President of the University of Vermont. In January of 1990, Lattie returned to Arizona to become the 15th President of ASU, remaining as President until 2002. After his retirement as President of ASU, Lattie stayed as a Professor and Ernest W. McFarland Chair in Leadership and Public Policy in the University's School of Public Affairs. He also co-founded the Center for the Future of Arizona where he continues to serve on the Board of Directors.

In his interview, Lattie recaps his life growing up in Arizona during the war years, providing many stories of his experiences with the various prisoner of war camps located in Arizona. He indicates that originally he thought he would become a lawyer and perhaps enter a political career, but then early on in his post-secondary work, he was greatly influenced by one of his professors at NAU and turned to pursuing a career in academics. From there he unfolds the story of his life as a professor and an academic administrator.

David Schwalm came to ASU in 1986 as Director of Composition and retired in 2009 as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the Polytechnic Campus. The interview has five main sections:
1, Pre-ASU Years where Dave discusses growing up in Fort Wayne, his education, and professional jobs.
2. Director of Composition addresses Dave’s increasing understanding of the university through his work on general studies and English articulation agreements.
3. ASU West covers Dave’s efforts to grow the student population and with Cathy Church to untangle the West and Tempe campus programs
4. ASU East has extensive coverage of how the campus was started and populated using an alliance with Chandler Gilbert Community College. Doing all this on a shoestring of a budget. Dave discusses why various faculty and programs were moved to the Polytechnic Campus.
5. Reflections allows Dave to reminisce about the “good old days” as well as the good new days.

A native of Akron, Ohio, Jack Kingsinger started his career fresh out of high school as a navigator in the Air Force toward the end of World War II. When the war ended, he pursued a double major Bachelors degree in Chemistry and Mathematics at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. He then went on to get a Masters degree in Chemistry from Cornell University. While working in private industry, he took advantage of the education benefits offered by the company he was working at and worked at getting his PhD in Chemistry from Penn. Academia was calling him, so he joined the faculty in the Chemistry Department at Michigan State. He later became the Chair of the department before leaving to become the Director of Chemistry at the National Science Foundation. He returned to Michigan State as the Assistant VP of Research which led to becoming the Associate Provost.

His journey to Arizona State University was actually initiated on a trip he made to visit the Chemistry Department as part of his role with the NSF. He was very impressed with the campus and when the position of Vice President of Academic Affairs opened up, he was quick to pursue it. He was hired by then President J. Russell Nelson and worked on many initiatives until his retirement.

Robert (Bob) Barnhill came to ASU in 1986 as Chair of the Computer Science Department and left in 1997 as the Vice President for Research. The interview addresses a number of topics including the beginnings of Computer Graphics, moving the Computer Science Department to a more research-oriented effort, achieving Research 1 status, working with the University of Arizona to develop a new statewide Intellectual Property template, dodging the Unabomber and playing soccer. Common themes throughout the interview include Bob’s success at getting groups of people to actually do something other than just meet and the importance of a strategic plan.